Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica
Puella Magi Madoka Magica (魔法少女まどか☆マギカ Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magika?, "Magical Girl Madoka Magica") is a Japanese anime television series produced by Shaft and Aniplex. It was directed by Akiyuki Shinbo and written by Gen Urobuchi, with original character designs by Ume Aoki, character design adaptation by Takahiro Kishida, and music by Yuki Kajiura. The story follows a group of female middle school students who choose to become magical girls and must battle surreal enemies called witches. However, they consequently learn of the anguish and perils associated with their newfound roles. Puella Magi Madoka Magica has received widespread critical acclaim, with critics praising the writing, characters, visuals and soundtrack of the series, as well as its unorthodox approach to the magical girl subgenre. It has also been a commercial success, with each BD volume selling more than 50,000 copies. The series won several awards in Japan, such as the Television Award at the 16th Animation Kobe Awards, as well as 12 Newtype Anime Awards and the Grand Prize for animation in the 2011 Japan Media Arts awards. In the years since its release, critics and reviewers, have hailed Madoka Magica as a masterpiece and frequently cite it as one of the greatest anime series of all time. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported that before the release of the third movie, the anime had grossed a total of 40 billion yen in the sales of related goods. A live broadcast of the entire series streamed on Nico Nico Douga on June 18, 2011 garnered around 1 million viewers, surpassing the previous record of 570,000 held by Lucky Star. Plot In the fictional city of Mitakihara, Japan, a middle school student named Madoka Kaname and her friend Sayaka Miki encounter a small, cat-like creature named Kyubey. It offers a contract in which a girl may have any wish granted in exchange for obtaining magical powers and being tasked with fighting against witches. Meanwhile, a transfer student and magical girl named Homura Akemi tries to stop Madoka from making the contract with Kyubey at all costs. Madoka and Sayaka then meet Mami Tomoe, an upperclassman at the same school who is also a magical girl and offers to bring them along on her witch hunts so that they may learn of the responsibilities that come with being a magical girl. As Madoka contemplates accepting the contract with Kyubey, she witnesses the death of Mami at the hands of a witch and realizes that a magical girl's life is filled with danger, anguish, and suffering. This is further enforced by the appearance of Kyoko Sakura, a veteran magical girl whose wish indirectly caused the death of her family. Madoka also discovers that not only do magical girls give up their souls to form their Soul Gems, the source of their magic, but when those Soul Gems become too tainted with despair, they transform into the very witches they fight against. This is exemplified when Sayaka, heavily disillusioned with the current state of the world, falls into an irrecoverable despair that turns her into a witch. It is then revealed that Kyubey's alien race is harvesting the emotions from magical girls to use as energy to counteract the spread of entropy. Madoka also learns that Homura is a magical girl from a different timeline who has repeated the same month countless times in order to try to save her from a grisly fate. After these revelations, Madoka decides to become a magical girl with the wish to stop witches before they are created. This rewrites the laws of the universe, resulting in Madoka becoming nothing more than a concept and Homura being the only one who remembers her in the new world that is formed. Reception